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Draw a line   /drɔ ə laɪn/   Listen
verb
draw  v. t.  (past drew; past part. drawn; pres. part. drawing)  
1.
To cause to move continuously by force applied in advance of the thing moved; to pull along; to haul; to drag; to cause to follow. "He cast him down to ground, and all along Drew him through dirt and mire without remorse." "He hastened to draw the stranger into a private room." "Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?" "The arrow is now drawn to the head."
2.
To influence to move or tend toward one's self; to exercise an attracting force upon; to call towards itself; to attract; hence, to entice; to allure; to induce. "The poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods." "All eyes you draw, and with the eyes the heart."
3.
To cause to come out for one's use or benefit; to extract; to educe; to bring forth; as:
(a)
To bring or take out, or to let out, from some receptacle, as a stick or post from a hole, water from a cask or well, etc. "The drew out the staves of the ark." "Draw thee waters for the siege." "I opened the tumor by the point of a lancet without drawing one drop of blood."
(b)
To pull from a sheath, as a sword. "I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them."
(c)
To extract; to force out; to elicit; to derive. "Spirits, by distillations, may be drawn out of vegetable juices, which shall flame and fume of themselves." "Until you had drawn oaths from him."
(d)
To obtain from some cause or origin; to infer from evidence or reasons; to deduce from premises; to derive. "We do not draw the moral lessons we might from history."
(e)
To take or procure from a place of deposit; to call for and receive from a fund, or the like; as, to draw money from a bank.
(f)
To take from a box or wheel, as a lottery ticket; to receive from a lottery by the drawing out of the numbers for prizes or blanks; hence, to obtain by good fortune; to win; to gain; as, he drew a prize.
(g)
To select by the drawing of lots. "Provided magistracies were filled by men freely chosen or drawn."
4.
To remove the contents of; as:
(a)
To drain by emptying; to suck dry. "Sucking and drawing the breast dischargeth the milk as fast as it can generated."
(b)
To extract the bowels of; to eviscerate; as, to draw a fowl; to hang, draw, and quarter a criminal. "In private draw your poultry, clean your tripe."
5.
To take into the lungs; to inhale; to inspire; hence, also, to utter or produce by an inhalation; to heave. "Where I first drew air." "Drew, or seemed to draw, a dying groan."
6.
To extend in length; to lengthen; to protract; to stretch; to extend, as a mass of metal into wire. "How long her face is drawn!" "And the huge Offa's dike which he drew from the mouth of Wye to that of Dee."
7.
To run, extend, or produce, as a line on any surface; hence, also, to form by marking; to make by an instrument of delineation; to produce, as a sketch, figure, or picture.
8.
To represent by lines drawn; to form a sketch or a picture of; to represent by a picture; to delineate; hence, to represent by words; to depict; to describe. "A flattering painter who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are." "Can I, untouched, the fair one's passions move, Or thou draw beauty and not feel its power?"
9.
To write in due form; to prepare a draught of; as, to draw a memorial, a deed, or bill of exchange. "Clerk, draw a deed of gift."
10.
To require (so great a depth, as of water) for floating; said of a vessel; to sink so deep in (water); as, a ship draws ten feet of water.
11.
To withdraw. (Obs.) "Go wash thy face, and draw the action."
12.
To trace by scent; to track; a hunting term.
13.
(Games)
(a)
(Cricket) To play (a short-length ball directed at the leg stump) with an inclined bat so as to deflect the ball between the legs and the wicket.
(b)
(Golf) To hit (the ball) with the toe of the club so that it is deflected toward the left.
(c)
(Billiards) To strike (the cue ball) below the center so as to give it a backward rotation which causes it to take a backward direction on striking another ball.
(d)
(Curling) To throw up (the stone) gently.
14.
To leave (a contest) undecided; as, the battle or game was drawn. "Win, lose, or draw." Note: Draw, in most of its uses, retains some shade of its original sense, to pull, to move forward by the application of force in advance, or to extend in length, and usually expresses an action as gradual or continuous, and leisurely. We pour liquid quickly, but we draw it in a continued stream. We force compliance by threats, but we draw it by gradual prevalence. We may write a letter with haste, but we draw a bill with slow caution and regard to a precise form. We draw a bar of metal by continued beating.
To draw a bow, to bend the bow by drawing the string for discharging the arrow.
To draw a cover, to clear a cover of the game it contains.
To draw a curtain, to cause a curtain to slide or move, either closing or unclosing. "Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws."
To draw a line, to fix a limit or boundary.
To draw back, to receive back, as duties on goods for exportation.
To draw breath, to breathe.
To draw cuts or To draw lots. See under Cut, n.
To draw in.
(a)
To bring or pull in; to collect.
(b)
To entice; to inveigle.
To draw interest, to produce or gain interest.
To draw off, to withdraw; to abstract.
To draw on, to bring on; to occasion; to cause. "War which either his negligence drew on, or his practices procured."
To draw (one) out, to elicit cunningly the thoughts and feelings of another.
To draw out, to stretch or extend; to protract; to spread out. "Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?" "Linked sweetness long drawn out."
To draw over, to cause to come over, to induce to leave one part or side for the opposite one.
To draw the longbow, to exaggerate; to tell preposterous tales.
To draw (one) to or To draw (one) on to (something), to move, to incite, to induce. "How many actions most ridiculous hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?"
To draw up.
(a)
To compose in due form; to draught; to form in writing.
(b)
To arrange in order, as a body of troops; to array. "Drawn up in battle to receive the charge."
Synonyms: To Draw, Drag. Draw differs from drag in this, that drag implies a natural inaptitude for drawing, or positive resistance; it is applied to things pulled or hauled along the ground, or moved with toil or difficulty. Draw is applied to all bodies moved by force in advance, whatever may be the degree of force; it commonly implies that some kind of aptitude or provision exists for drawing. Draw is the more general or generic term, and drag the more specific. We say, the horses draw a coach or wagon, but they drag it through mire; yet draw is properly used in both cases.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Draw a line" Quotes from Famous Books



... that the general outlines of what may be safely said upon that subject may be summed up in a very few words. Draw a line on a globe from the Gold Coast in Western Africa to the steppes of Tartary. At the southern and western end of that line there live the most dolichocephalic, prognathous, curly-haired, dark-skinned of men—the true Negroes. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... swifter keels, and left the rafts Free from attack, in hope of larger spoil From fresh adventures; for the peaceful sea May tempt them, and their goal in safety reached, To dare a second voyage. Round the stag Thus will the cunning hunter draw a line Of tainted feathers poisoning the air; Or spread the mesh, and muzzle in his grasp The straining jaws of the Molossian hound, And leash the Spartan pack; nor is the brake Trusted to any dog but such as tracks The scent with lowered nostrils, and refrains From giving ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... information. Having thus helped him to the solution of his first problem, with the view of illustrating the nature of geometrical methods, he is in future to be left to solve the questions put to him as best he can. To bisect a line, to erect a perpendicular, to describe a square, to bisect an angle, to draw a line parallel to a given line, to describe a hexagon, are problems which a little patience will enable him to find out. And from these he may be led on step by step to more complex questions: all of which, under judicious management, he will puzzle through unhelped. Doubtless, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... private. Why should a man, whose income, perhaps derived from land or funded property below L150, pay nothing, while a hard working clerk, attorney, or country surgeon, who makes L155, and is not worth a tenth part of the other's realised capital, pays income-tax? It is in vain to say you must draw a line somewhere. So you must, but you must not draw it in a way to do gross and palpable injustice,—to exempt the comparatively affluent, and oppress the industrious poor. There is a vital distinction, which it would be well if the income ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... problem has been solved. Pope, to take the instance which was prominent in Wordsworth's mind, was, by general admission, a poet. But his success seemed to depend on imitable peculiarities; and Pope's imitators were so like Pope that it was hard to draw a line and say where they ceased to be poets. At last, however, this imitative school began to prove too much. If all the insipid verses which they wrote were poetry, what was the use of writing poetry at all? A reaction succeeded, which asserted that poetry depends on emotion and not on polish; that ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers



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